The 402,000 voters who put their cross against either Labour or the Liberal Democrats returned exactly no MPs, at a mathematically interesting average The 16 who got in are a pretty remarkable bunch. Among their ranks march Michael Howard, the Home Secretary; his underling Ann Widdecombe (whose new uniform of black cassock and dangling crucifix makes her look like the Vicar of Dibley under demonic possession); Roger Gale, the splenetic Thanet member, whose spell as a producer on Blue Peter ("down Patch!") has somehow qualified him as an expert on broadcasting; Robert Dunn, the graceless Ernst Rohm lookalike from Dartford; Jacques "buzz-saw" Arnold; and David Shaw, the Dover soul whose pallor and all-round attractiveness suggest an extra from Night of The Living Dead who has stumbled into politics. If it weren't for Medway's lustrous septuagenerian, Dame Peggy Fenner, Julian "nice-but-dim" Brazier (Canterbury) and the conscientious Mid-Kenter, Andrew Rowe, you might think that Kent Tories simply bred 'em nasty. Nasty they were certainly being. Bob Dunn had tabled a motion laying into Kent County Council, whose Maidstone town hall has - since 1993 - been in the hands of a Lib-Lab coalition (thus ending what David Shaw described as "a hundred years of stability" - ie Tory rule). Nine of the Tory Kents had showed up to support Dunn and add their five pen'orth to the propaganda war between Maidstone and Central Office.I - a humble sketch writer - cannot advise the reader on the rights and wrongs of the Kent tragedy.

If Mr Dunn is to be believed, the Lib-Labbers have, in four short years, laid waste an entire county, squandering the golden patrimony that they inherited. Now the council were engaged in a "Stalinist" information war, where elderly council retainers were suborned to repeat falsehoods for (wait for it) "party political advantage".Thus was Mr Dunn's tale. But, for such a committed anti-Stalinist, he was strangely committed to the other side's tale not being heard. One by one he accepted the interventions of his fellow Tory MPs, while resolutely refusing to accept any from the three non-Kenters on the Opposition benches. Soon it was all like a one-sided volleyball match, the Tories banging the ball across an undefended net, cheering their own inevitable point, and then doing it again - their enthusiasm and hyperbole in inverse proportion to the safeness of their seats.But then came one of the best parliamentary moments I have witnessed in a year. Labour's Dale Campbell-Savours, the MP for far-off Workington, rose to the defence of a council that, he said "could not defend itself" in the House.

Stolidly, he intoned a speech full of statistics supporting Kent's case and contradicting Mr Dunn's.One by one, the furious anti-Stalinists opposite attempted to interrupt or derail him. Specious points of order came from Messrs Arnold, Gale, Roger Moate, Rowe, Shaw and Fenner, all furious at suffering exactly the same shut-out that they had themselves earlier inflicted. Like Horatius, however, the double barrelled Cumbrian kept the bridge Gradually the hordes fell back - and then fell silent. "They don't like it up 'em!" called out Labour's Andrew Mackinlay.

No more they did.A couple of minutes after it was all over, a figure emerged from behind the Speaker's chair and sat beside Labour's Horatius.John Prescott had come to say "well done".. The swinging voters of Wirral South turned out in force yesterday to tell Tony Blair that they were deserting the Tories and the Liberal Democrats to give Labour their backing in the 27 February by-election. At a specially staged Labour meeting for voters identified as potential "switchers" in doorstep and telephone canvassing of the constituency held until his death last year by Tory MP Barry Porter, one 84-year-old woman told The Independent she had voted Conservative or Liberal Democrat all her life, but was now definite as a Labour voter in the by-election. Some of those present at the meeting, in a pub hall at Thornton Hough, were still uncertain. They included a 47-year-old local manufacturer who was "touch and go" for Labour, and 68-year-old Mike Adams, former managing director of a Liverpool shipping firm, who said he had never voted Labour in his life, but was more "open minded" about doing so now."Tony Blair is a very good leader," Mr Adams said. "He has got a lot of drive and a lot of things he says I would agree with. My concern, I suppose, is whether he'll take all his Labour colleagues with him if he gets into power."However, the enthusiasm of many of the converts was striking.

Margaret Bracegirdle of Heswall, 68, a retired deputy school head, said during a question-and-answer session with Mr Blair: "If the socialists get in, and I do hope they do ... "Later, Mr Blair said in an indictment of Labour's 18 wasted years: "People like new Labour. People have been crying out for a proper, sensible, serious alternative to the Tories for years. Now they have got one."There are people who have literally voted Conservative all their lives who are fed up with the Tories, like New Labour, and are anxious to see us deliver."But he also said that the movement in the by-election vote could be more secure than usual, suggesting that a protest vote might be sustained through to the general election - with Labour possibly winning Wirral South in both elections."You say people go back to the Conservatives out of self-interest," Mr Blair told a Granada television interviewer who suggested that Wirral South would return to the Tory fold in a general election."I think it is an enlightened and sensible view of self-interest that is bringing people to today's Labour Party. The reason people are coming back is precisely because they see that Labour has something to offer for the future."Not just a kick against the Tories a couple of months before the general election, but actually a government that can offer new hope and a new start for Britain in the future."Mr Blair touched all the bases in his question-and-answer session and a run of media interviews, saying that he would defend British interests as a "patriot" abroad, and would work for "One Nation" policies at home.The reference to the lost One Nation Tory tradition struck a chord during a frenetic but friendly walkabout by Mr Blair in the blue-chip Tory ward of Heswall, where shoppers gave the Labour leader their best wishes. Although the morning's flying visit was extremely well organised - like everything else the Labour machine is doing in the Wirral South campaign - the machine minders could not have set up the presence or the views of John O'Hanlon, a retired manager of the private health insurers BPP.Waiting to wish Mr Blair luck in Heswall's main shopping street, Mr O'Hanlon said: "We are becoming more of a divided society and, regrettably the less fortunate part of our society is being driven further and further down.